In the Blood
by FloridaMagpie
Summary: With Mr. House gone and the Legion crushed, Courier Six and his small cadre of companions struggle to preserve the independence of New Vegas - and sort out some personal business in the process. M!Courier x Cass, Veronica x mystery girl, other pairings.
1. Waiting

Prologue

The man in the pressed suit finds him sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of an imposing three-story ranch house outside of Redding, two big, ugly grey dogs with mismatched eyes lying at his feet. There's a cold Nuka Cola in his hand and an open book facedown on his lap. The man in the suit stops a few feet shy of the weathered wooden steps, hat in his hand. The sun is in his eyes; he's squinting, and a fat drop of sweat is trickling down from his temple towards his chin, leaving a crooked, shining track in the dust on his face. He wipes it away as the man in the rocking chair stands up.

Up close and standing, the man he's come to find is bigger than he thought at first, and the hands holding the book and the sweating drink are gnarled and battered. There's a long scar running down his face from left cheekbone to jawline, and his nose has been broken more than once.

"Guess I've been expecting you," says the man on the porch. "When did it happen?"

The man in the suit looks confused. "Sir?"

The man on the porch doesn't say anything.

"When did what happen, sir?"

No response. The man in the suit speaks quickly, rushing ahead. "My name is Weiss, sir – Henry Weiss. I'm from the government, sir."

"I can see that," says the man on the porch. Somewhere beyond the treeline, they can hear a crow cawing. The silence stretches out between them.

Henry follows the other man's eyes to the hat in his hands, and understanding dawns across his features. "Oh, sir, you must think I'm from the war department. No sir, I'm not here for that at all. I'm sure your son or daughter is fine. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean…" He looks around, but there's no yellow ribbon to be seen, not on the lamppost out front, or on the pillars of the porch, and he looks uncertain again.

After a moment, the man on the porch exhales, slowly. "How about you come inside and tell me what this is about?" he says.

He waits while the sweating man climbs the steps and passes through the door into the front hall. Out of sight of the man in the suit, he puts the book down on the seat of the rocking chair.  
>His hand shake, just a little. He wipes his forehead, takes a deep breath.<p>

"Dogs, stay," he says. One dog cocks an eyebrow at him, the other doesn't bother to move. He pauses in the doorway for a moment. He can hear his wife inside as Weiss introduces himself.

She offers him a drink, and asks him his business.

"Ma'am, your country needs your husband's help…"

This is what he should have expected all along, he knows. They do this every couple of years. This time, he thinks, he'll do what they ask, whatever it is. He needs to get out of this house, away from the dogs, and the dust, and the waiting. He looks out at the road one more time, and then he goes into the house and shuts the door. He's got responsibilities, and obligations to fulfill.

He's the chosen one, after all. It's what he does.

* * *

><p>Author's note: this was originally going to be a huge sprawling epic, but I got bogged down in it months ago. Rather than abandon it completely, I'm going to try to scope it back and publish what I have. In case anyone's curious, this is set in the same universe as "Whiskey Rose." Just a little earlier in the story.<p> 


	2. Anyone else wanna negotiate?

The old ghoul in the Petro-Chico jumpsuit is leaning with his back to the wall of the meeting room, a prewar ballcap pulled low over his eyes, the heel of one hand resting lazily on a well-oiled .44 magnum slung low in a tooled leather holster on his right hip. There's a fresh patch sewn over his left breast pocket that reads "Raoul." He's watching the representatives of the Van Graff Family and the Crimson Caravan Company mill about, two clusters of men and women in valuable but worn pre-war business attire.

There's a carefully maintained airspace between the groups. It's clear that they're here for the same reason, but they're definitely not together. Two of the men are standing with their backs to him, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows that make up one wall of the room, facing out onto the sunbeaten expanse of a cracked and potholed parking lot. Outside, across the street, a crowd is gathering around a wooden platform where carpenters are working. Others are standing on the sidewalk looking back at the men in the window. The door opens, and everyone turns to look.

The man who walks in is wearing battered green body armor and a black Stetson. He's followed by a strikingly beautiful woman with red hair and a woven rattan cowboy hat. Underneath the brim of the hat, her grey eyes are smouldering and her jaw is set. There's an old, ornately decorated over-and-under shotgun slung on her back, muzzle down. The worn stock sticks up over her shoulder, just behind her ear. The man isn't visibly armed, but a space opens up around him anyway. The two walk to the front of the room and sit down at the head of the table. There's space between them too. Rustling confusion follows as the delegates find seats. The man speaks.

"Thank you for meeting with us," he says. Nervous heads bobble around the room. Somebody says, too loudly "Of course". There's a pause afterwards. The ghoul shifts position and smiles a little. After a moment, the man in the armor goes on.

"I know you've all travelled a long way to be here, and I know we've got a lot of negotiating to do before we're done here. But first, there's something you need to see." He gestures out the plate glass window at the swelling crowd in the parking lot.

"Alice McCafferty, Dan Hostetler, Jean-Baptiste Cutting, and Gloria Van Graff were convicted last week of murder, banditry, looting, arson, conspiracy, trafficking in stolen goods, racketeering, and theft of intellectual property. That wooden platform you see out there is where they'll be hanged at dawn tomorrow."

One of the women at the table is wearing a pinstriped suit with a red pin on her lapel. She's sitting to the man's left, an empty seat between them. She's just in front of the ghoul in the jumpsuit, and he can see a bead of sweat on her neck, just below the hairline. She clears her throat. "Sir, I'm Jane McCafferty, Alice's cousin. We had hoped to discuss terms on which you'd be willing to release our personnel…"

He holds up a hand. She stops. He reaches up, takes off the cowboy hat, puts it down on the table. There are two puckered white scars on the left side of his forehead, a quarter inch apart.

"This isn't the NCR," he says. "Here justice isn't bought and sold with influence, or paper money. This is New Vegas. You break the law, you kill the innocent, you hang. That's the law. There's no negotiation on this point."

Jane McCafferty tries again. "We're prepared to offer very generous…"

The man brings a hand crashing down on the table. Everyone jumps but the ghoul and the redhead. A cup overturns, rolling back and forth as water spreads slowly across the table, but no one moves. The redhead looks over at the man, and the ghost of a smile flitters about her eyes. He speaks again, quietly, biting down on each word.

"Ms. Cassidy here lost her livelihood, her employees, and many of her friends. Others lost even more. Alice McCafferty and Dan Hostetler ordered half a dozen Brahmin trains wiped out so that they could buy out Cassidy Caravans for pennies on the dollar, and Gloria Van Graff and Jean Baptiste Cutting planned and carried out the attacks. That's only a fraction of the damage their little cabal of conspirators did. Durable Dan, the Griffins, a dozen others are completely gone. You don't do business like that, not in this town. Not and live to gloat about it. You are here to negotiate for the right to trade in Nevada, a right that has been stripped from your organizations because of repeated, ongoing, and vile crimes. Crimes planned, ordered, and carried out by the people who _will_ walk to that scaffold tomorrow morning. My representatives and I will discuss issues of taxes and tariffs, trade routes and protection, and available leasing opportunities for offices in greater New Vegas, but we will _not _negotiate on the price those murdering bastards will pay for their crimes."

Jane McCafferty cleared her throat again, and spoke quietly.

"We can leave leasing out of the discussion. We already have a facility here in New Vegas that we're quite satisfied with, and I believe the Van Graffs have a storefront in Freeside" she pointed out.

"No," the man said. "I'm quite sure you don't. The compound to which you refer is now… what did the Followers of the Apocalypse do with it, Cass?"

The redhead says "I believe it's an orphanage now. There are a lot of orphans in New Vegas, what with all the lost caravans."

"Ah, that's right," says the man. "And what is it that they did with the old Silver Rush again?"

"A vocational school," she says. "For caravan guards."

The man looks across the table, stopping to meet each pair of eyes. Most of them can't meet his gaze. One man in a pinstriped jacket and green slacks dabs at the spilled water on the table with a handkerchief.

"Your properties became forfeit when they were used as a base of operations for raiders. We will not be negotiating that point either. But there _are_ quite a few things we will be negotiating today, and we need to work fast."

A man on the far side of the table speaks up now. He's wearing a black suit and sunglasses.

"I'm Charles Van Graff, sir. I speak for the Van Graff family in this matter. I think we can all agree that issues as important as the ones we're here to discuss can't be rushed." He folds his hands on the table and leans forward. "We've planned for several weeks of discussions, if necessary."

Across the table, the woman with the red pin nods. The man at the head of the table looks out of the window toward the crowd, then back at the assembled negotiators.

"I agree that much of what we have to discuss can be hammered out over the coming days or even weeks," he says. "But there's something we need to resolve today – the issue of compensation to the families of the victims. Out there are the friends and relatives of the men and women murdered by your colleagues. Those people out there in the street have lost their fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters to your collective greed. When we're done here, you're going to go out there with me and you're going to explain to _them_ how your respective organizations intend to make that right. I think a full reimbursement of the value of lost property, plus two thousand caps per confirmed victim would be an appropriate start."

Jane McCafferty sits back. "That's... a bit much."

"I wasn't finished," the man says, evenly. "In two hours, if we haven't come to an agreement, my colleagues and I will get up and leave. Then those protectrons out there will let all those people, all of those angry, grieving, vengeful widows and brothers and fathers into the building so they can address their grievances with you in a more direct and… _personal_ manner. I'm willing to go to a certain length to tolerate your presence and guarantee your safety for the sake of renewed trade and good relations with the NCR, but don't think for a minute that I won't cheerfully allow those people to rend you limb from fucking limb if you try to equivocate, stall, or obfuscate your way out of your responsibilities to them."

All around the table, wide eyes swivel back and forth between the mob outside the window and the man at the head of the table.

"I suggest we use this time to come up with an _equitable_," he leans hard on the word, "arrangement regarding an appropriate level of compensation for their losses."

He looks down at his antique wristwatch. "Clock's ticking," he says.

Raoul is smirking openly now. On the other hand, when the redhead's lips curl back, not even the densest person in the room mistakes it for a smile.

Nobody else in the Mojave negotiates like Courier Six of New Vegas.


	3. Evaluation

Two men are standing in the middle of an old operating theater. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker occasionally. Around them are old gurneys, discarded M-size oxygen bottles, and dusty surgical equipment. In a cleared space in the middle of the room are a pair of old metal chairs, facing each other.

Doc Mitchell is leaning over an ancient surgical table, carefully rolling up his instruments in a leather case. The Courier is putting his shirt on. His body armor makes an untidy heap on a gurney nearby.

"How's Sarah doing? asks the Courier.

Doc Mitchell sighs. "Still a shut in, in that vault of hers. She wears it well, though."

The courier raises an eyebrow. "That vault of _hers?_"

Mitchell shakes his head. "Ain't been my vault in many years, not since what made it mine passed on."

The Courier nods and puts a hand on the older man's shoulder for a moment. He steps back and grins. "She still calling you Mole-butt?"

The older man gives him an even look. "She's not had occasion to see my bare rear end in quite some time, young man." He smiles, suddenly. "Frankly I think she'd rather see yours, since she asks about you so often."

The Courier looks at the wall. "She sure does like those vault suits I've been collecting for her."

The doctor chuckles. "You're a terrible liar, son. One of the things I like most about you, in fact."

"Wonder if I was ever good at it."

"Well, now, that's a good question. It's been almost a year now. Do you remember any more about your life before the injury?"

"Not a thing. Not even flashes. It's like I didn't exist before Benny put me on my knees and put two in my head."

"Strange that you remember that. With the level of head trauma you suffered, it wouldn't be surprising that you suffered both retrograde and anterograde amnesia; but to have only the last seconds before the injury, and nothing at all before that? Well, that's passing strange. If you lost all your memory, that'd be one thing, but this?" The doc shook his head. "It's…"

"Strange?" asked the Courier, with a faint smile.

"That it is," says the doctor. "How about that other side effect?"

"You mean how time slows down sometimes?"

At Mitchell's nod, the Courier goes on. "Yeah, that's still happening."

"And it's been happening ever since you were shot?"

"Yeah. No way to know if it started after that or I always had it, of course."

"True."

Both men fall silent, pondering the implications.

"I'll bet it sure is useful in a fight, though," says the doctor.

"It is that," says the Courier.


	4. Too old for this

The Lieutenant leading the detachment escorting the him to New Vegas calls a halt for rest and resupply at the Dam. Two days cooling his heels. He chafes impatiently at the wasted time, at the curious mix of deference and condescension he gets from the men, even though he knows that the rest is largely for his benefit. True, he'd been huffing and puffing a bit there at the end, but he's fifty-eight years old. Given his age, he's doing pretty damned well. That, and the fact that he's been sitting on his ass on that porch for the last few years. Still, he wishes they were on the move. He'd like the chance to push himself a bit, relive the old days a bit, when he was the young healthy one listening to Cassidy bitch about his feet and exhorting them to _respect their elders_ whenever he caught Sulik and him rolling their eyes at each other.

Suddenly it hits him. They're _respecting their elders_. God, he thinks, he's lived long enough to become an elder. Isn't _that_ a surprise. Against all odds, he's lived long enough to become a burden to those around him. Wonderful. Cassidy would have laughed himself sick.

There's another reason he doesn't want the layover. It gives him time to think. Thinking always ends up in the same place - him in a rocking chair, watching the horizon for a figure he knows will never come home.


	5. Transition of Authority

"Honestly, I thought I understood him. I thought he was on our side. He'd certainly done us enough good turns. It wasn't until I got Oliver's message after the battle that I realized I'd been duped. Or maybe I just never really knew his motivations in the first place. "

The distinguished looking man taps idly on the keyboard with one thin brown finger, his eyes never leaving the Chosen One's face. The hair at his temples is graying, and there are worry lines around his eyes. His voice is soft. The Chosen One thinks he sounds contemplative, like he's working this through in his head as he goes.

"I admit, we never asked him to take a loyalty oath, but he'd been so reliable it just didn't seem necessary. The man single-handedly organized the defense of the Dam, coordinated the various local factions that provided assistance, and then volunteered to lead the assault personally. That's after he saved the president's life, sorted out some serious problems at Camp Golf, and saved the garrison at Camp Forlorn Hope. Of course, all that could have been part of a plan to achieve his real goals."

Crocker looks away, shaking his head, and goes on. "But he also helped out at our refugee camps at Bitter Springs, sorted out a conflict between our citizens and the locals in Freeside, and helped our troops all over the Mojave in a hundred small ways. I have a report from Boulder Springs says he walked into a hostage standoff between our troops and the same Great Khans who helped Benny Gecko to shoot him in the head. Somehow, he talked the local lieutenant into trading the Khans' freedom for the hostages. Then he let the men who tried to kill him just stroll away. He even marched into a fiend ambush on purpose just to bring back a dead ranger so his wife could bury him. None of that was necessary to establish an independent New Vegas. I've met him a dozen times, and the sense I always got was a man with a strong sense of justice, of responsibility for others. Maybe that was the problem – maybe we're too corrupt, too bureaucratic for a man like him. If a man like that won't follow us, I fear what we've become."

_Crocker likes to talk_, the Chosen One thinks. A good trait in a man expected to carry on idle conversation at diplomatic functions. He thinks that the Ambassador seems genuinely regretful. The files Henry Weiss had passed to him on the man suggested that he hadn't done too badly in the recent crisis, at least not until the very end – the Legion was broken, Caesar and Lanius dead, holdouts and pockets here and there were being rooted out by small units of NCR troopers. Of course, he reminds himself, this Courier had been the one to accomplish most of that, and Crocker had been the one to recruit him in the first place, so Crocker might well be chagrined that such a useful tool had turned so disastrously in his hands.

"Sounds like you think a lot of the man," he probes. Crocker nods.

"I'd have sworn he was our greatest asset in the Mojave." He pauses, thinks about that. "No, scratch that, he _was_ our greatest asset in the Mojave. The question is, what else was he?"

That wasn't what the Chosen One was getting at. "I meant you think a lot of him personally," he clarifies.

Crocker sighs. "You'll understand when you meet the man, he's not like anyone else around here. I can't get a handle on him. He'll risk his life for a stranger on five minutes acquaintance. He'll forgive failure, weakness, and outright treachery. He'll help a man in his worst hour, and refuse payment afterwards. He's a god-damn humanitarian with a gun. But Colonel Chu estimates he's personally killed three, four hundred people in the last year. He put Benny Gecko down in plain sight of his bodyguards in the middle of the Tops casino _with Bennys' own gun_, and then talked the guards down so he wouldn't have to kill them too. For god's sake, Swank was Benny's best friend, and now he and the Courier have lunch every other Wednesday in the bar at the Tops. My sources say they barely ever talk business."

He takes a deep breath and goes on. "They say in Goodsprings a week after he woke up from being shot in the head he organized a militia to fend off the Powder Gangers drifting north out of the NCRCF and personally killed half a dozen of them, then came south and cleared out Primm in under an hour. The local CO of our outpost there says he came down the road from Goodsprings, stopped in to ask about the situation, then walked straight across the bridge, killed every Powder Ganger in the place, reprogrammed that robot to serve as a sheriff, and was gone by sunup. He said the locals were dragging bodies out of the old Bison Steve for three days. He counted almost twenty of them."  
>Crocker grins. "Come to think of it, he reminds me of stories I heard about somebody else, forty-odd years ago. He hasn't blown up any oil rigs yet, though."<p>

The Chosen One lets that pass. "Which brings us to why I'm here, I guess."

"Yup." The ambassador picks up a thick file off of his desk. "Here's everything we know about him."

The Chosen One flips through the file. "No picture," he points out.

The Ambassador nods. "He's been careful about that, for some reason. We couldn't find a single good image of him, and sketch artists are hard to come by, out here. One of my staff has an idea on that, thinks he wants to be able to move about the Mojave without attracting attention. Makes a refreshing change from Caesar, with his face on all those crazy antique-looking coins."

Crocker stands up. "Doesn't matter much, I suppose. I imagine you'll be meeting with him as early as tomorrow. You'll need to see him to present your credentials, after all."

"So that's it?" asks the Chosen One.

"Oh, there'll be a big fancy ceremony at the end of the week, lots of flag raising and lowering, and a reception afterwards. Plenty of booze on hand, and all the local social climbers in attendance. But this, right here is the important part. It's in your hands now."

The Chosen One winces. More people who'll want things from him; more sycophants, flatterers, and self-important fools. He misses his dogs, and his wife, and the quiet of an empty house, and he wonders why he ever agreed to this.

_Get it done_, he thinks.

Crocker is on his feet, hand extended. The Chosen One stands, shakes it.

The old Ambassador seems to straighten his shoulders, like a man who's just finished a difficult job of physical labor. He nods, turns, and walks out the door, leaving the new NCR Ambassador to New Vegas standing alone in the big, empty office, looking after him.


	6. Guy talk

The Aces lounge theater is packed to standing room only. Over in a quiet little corner, behind a faded red velvet rope, the Boone and the Courier are drinking vodka. Onstage, Tommy Torini and the Rad Pack Revue are winding up. The crowd is into it, the noise rising and falling as Tommy works the room.

The two men aren't talking, but they're not listening either. The Courier is watching the door. Boone is watching the courier. After a while, he speaks.

"She's not coming, you know."

The Courier looks startled. "Who?"

Boone looks at him silently.

"Who?" he asks again.

Boone keeps looking.

"Oh," says the Courier. "Her."

Boone doesn't say anything.

"I wasn't expecting… I didn't think she'd…" He trails off. Boone is still watching him.  
>"I'm fucked, aren't I?<p>

Boone nods.

"Dammit."

Boone finally speaks. "If you don't mind me asking, what's the problem there?"

"I dunno. Can't close the distance."

Boone grins. If there's one thing he gets, it's tactical analogies for interpersonal relationships.  
>"She got another target?" he asks.<p>

"Don't think so. If she does, she's being pretty subtle about it. It's not like our little group keeps secrets."

Boone grunts agreement. "Do you?" he asks.

"What, keep secrets?"

"Have another head in the scope."

There's a pause.

" I think you just pushed that metaphor too far," says the Courier, thoughtfully.

"Yeah, probably," Boone agrees smoothly. He's looking steadily at the Courier, all the same.

The Courier sighs. "No. There was this girl Sarah, over at the Vault 21 hotel, but that's been over for a while."

"How long is a while?" Boone asks.

"Since… _"_ the Courier trails off.

"Since you met Cass?" the sniper asks.

After a second, the Courier nods.

Both men sit in silence for a minute.  
>"It's like that, huh?" asks Boone.<p>

"Yeah," says the Courier. "It's like that.


	7. Not Done Yet

"Well, Boss, I suppose we could always ask them to go away nicely." The scarcasm in the old ghoul's voice is palpable. Veronica snorts. Arcade rolls his eyes. Even Boone smirks, a little. Cass, over in the corner of the rec room, arms folded, leaning against a wall, doesn't move or look up.

Raoul goes on. "Look, Boss, we've got a narrow window here where they're disorganized. Right now they're running with their tails between their legs, but sooner or later they're going to realize there's still a lot of them and we're still the same guys we were last year."

Arcade speaks up. "I don't really know that it's that simple. Culturally, Caesar was at the heart of the Legion. His ideas, his chosen mythology, even his personality itself. It's hard to say how his loss is going to affect them long-term. My guess, if historical models apply here, is that there's going to be a power struggle back home as the remaining leadership fight over the scraps. That's what happened when Alexander the Great died, and the successor states fought amongst themselves for generations afterwards. On the other hand, a common external threat might unite them, at least temporarily."

Everyone looks at him in silence for a couple of seconds. He throws up his hands.

"Fine, fine. I think the legion will fall into civil war if we leave them alone. If we push them, we might just give them a reason to stay together. Ignorant savages."

That draws a grin from Veronica. "Maybe you should go hang around with _my _family for a while, Arcade. You might fit right in."

"He's got a point, though," says Cass. Everyone turns to look, except the Courier. "They're hurt now, and they don't have anybody at the top. That's usually when the knives come out. We leave them alone, there might be three or four legions fighting each other for control of Arizona before the end of the year."

"Is that what we want?" asks Veronica. "Right now the Legion is keeping up law and order in Colorado and Arizona, assuming you consider mass crucifixions a form of law and order. They start fighting each other, it's going to get messy, and that might spill over into Nevada. We've got enough mess here already."

Boone rocks forward from the wall where he's been leaning. "Sounds good to me," he says.

There's some shuffling of feet, and silence.

"We've all got reasons to wish ill on the Legion," says the Courier. "But we're responsible for more than ourselves now. We've got next-best thing to 20,000 people in the Greater New Vegas area, and we've got to think about what's best for them. That may not the complete destruction of the Legion, especially if they keep the tribes in the East occupied or under control. I've fought White-legs and 80's, and can tell you that's a flavor of trouble that we do **not **need here. Bad as the legion are, they've got nothing if not discipline, and nobody's ever accused them of failing to protect the roads or enforce law and order."

Boone is on his feet, shoulders hunched up. "So that makes it okay?"

Nobody wants to look at him. "Hey, Boone, nobody's saying that," says Raoul. "It's just..."

"Legion's got their backs against the wall, and now we're debating just letting them go?" asks Boone.

Raoul looks at the floor. The Courier speaks.

"Hey guys. Let's pick this back up tomorrow. Boone, can you stick around?" he asks.

There's a general shuffle of feet as the room clears. As the bodies file out, he can see that Cass hasn't moved either. She looks up from under the brim of her straw hat. "I've got a stake in this, too. I ain't done with Legion, not after what they've done here."

The Courier nods. Boone speaks. "You got responsibilities, now, I can see that. But I don't, and I'm not done yet with the Legion, not by a long sight. If you aren't down for that, I understand, but I need to know that."

The Courier's gaze sharpens. "Don't forget who you're talking to," he says.

It's Boone's turn to nod. "I know. I was there. You put two ounces of lead in Lanius's head at Hoover Dam. I know you didn't have to do that. The battle was already over, and you might have saved some lives if you'd negotiated."

Cass speaks up. "I'm glad you didn't. Some men need killing."

Boone goes on. "And I was there when you put down Caesar like a dog in front of God and his Pretorians. We damn near didn't get out of there."

"Good thing you had a crazy bitch with a shotgun on your side," puts in Cass. The Courier glances over at her and his eyes crinkle up for a moment as he grins. She blinks.

"I have to ask," says Boone.

The Courier is watching him, silent.

"I have to ask. Did you do that for me? Because I've got a hate on for the Legion?"

The Courier doesn't say anything. Cass is watching him too.

"I've got to know," says Boone. "I've got to know that I'm not poisoning your decisions. That you're not doing things that don't make sense because of me."

"I didn't do it for you," says the Courier."I did it because killing him makes the world safer, better. But he's dead now, and so is Lanius, and we need to start thinking of the legion as just one of many threats, or we're going to be stuck spending the next twenty years digging every legionary out of the mountains."

Boone shakes his head. "I'm not done yet." After a moment, he says "I heard from Colonel Dhatri. 1st Recon is doing a long range recon probe toward the Grand Canyon, try to get some hard information on Legion numbers and dispositions, thin their numbers a bit in the process. He asked me to come back."

The Courier's eyes are shuttered. "Are you going to do it?"

Boone sighs, looks away. "I think so," he says. "Look, I have to do this, I have to finish this, and I don't know when I'm going to be done, or even what done will look like. But I'm not there yet."

The Courier nods. "I'll miss you," he says. "But you've got to do what you've got to do, and we'll get by. You've always got a place here, if you want it."

Boone is looking at him now, steady. "You knew this was coming?"

"I know you have to do this" he says.

Boone looks at Cass. She nods. Boone snorts. "The two of you coulda told me. I was up all last night beating myself up about it."

The Courier grins. "That's because we know you better than you do."

"Bullshit," says Boone.

"Ok, but I'd bet we like you better than you do, anyway."

Boone nods. "You're probably right." He walks to the door. "I'll get my stuff packed and get it over to McCarran tomorrow."

The Courier says "Tops tonight? Everybody'll want to buy you a drink."

Boone shakes his head. "I want to start early, and I don't want to make a bit thing about it."

The Courier nods as Boone walks out the door. There's silence for a second, then Cass gets up and follows him out. The Courier looks at her back as she walks to the door. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. She pauses in the doorway, and for a minute it looks like she's going to say something, but she doesn't. The door shuts behind her, leaving the Courier alone in the room.


End file.
